WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Won't Back Down

In Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles and other cities, Democratic mayors have feuded bitterly with teachers’ unions and at times come to see them as enemies. And at a meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors in June, Democratic mayors joined Republican ones in a unanimous endorsement of so-called parent trigger legislation, about which unions have serious reservations. -- Frank Bruni, NYT, "Teachers on the Defensive."

KIPP Superiority?

"What’s bad is the pretense, and KIPP’s constant touting of itself as superior to the public schools on which it dumps its rejects, and reaping of vast amounts of private funding from sources that are undoubtedly sold on the belief that KIPP is working miracles with all segments of low-income communities." -- Caroline Grannan on Ravitch blog, "The KIPP Boast"

Krugman on Christie

New Jersey’s own Chris Christie will be the keynote speaker at the RNC, where he will be billed as a guy who gets things done. According to reports, however, one thing he won’t be talking about is the state of the New Jersey economy. -- Paul Krugman, "Comebacks"

Zero percent

A new poll suggests that Mitt Romney may achieve the nearly impossible: He may receive even less than the tiny 4 percent of the black vote that Sen. John McCain won four years ago...But as conservatives regained power — aided by the white South's shift from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican — black voters went the other way. As my father used to say, "We didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republicans left us." -- Clarence Page